


White Lines Flyin' By

by BleuSarcelle



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: ? - Freeform, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Before Season Seven, Fix-It of Sorts, Fluff, Gen, Keith & Shiro (Voltron) Friendship, Lance & Shiro (Voltron) Friendship, Light Angst, M/M, Missing Scene, Post Season Six, Pre-Relationship, Road Trips, Team Bonding, Team as Family, Visions, broganes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-07
Updated: 2018-11-09
Packaged: 2019-08-19 20:43:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,204
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16541888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BleuSarcelle/pseuds/BleuSarcelle
Summary: “I just hope my family is okay,” Lance whispers quietly, sighing softly as he rubs stubbornly his right eye. Keith’s face softens, a small smile growing on his lips at Lance’s wishes.“Lance,” he calls gently, bumping his shoulder against Lance’s to catch his attention. “Lance, they are.”Keith knows this because he saw them. He saw them chatting and laughing among themselves as he sat in their dining room. He saw them sitting on the front rows of his future-self as he waited patiently on the altar with the ocean behind him.Keith smiles, happy and confident for the future to come. “Call it a gut feeling.”[Or a few missing scenes inside the road trip I expected between season six and seven]





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Ok, alright, important: All of this was written before season seven aired so...yeah! Just have that in mind.
> 
> I just really wanted to share because these scenes was what I really fucking craved for season seven and, well, ya know :))) 
> 
> I love you Voltron, but I need more team bonding and them just being teens and adressing important shit, ok?
> 
> Ps. All of the chapters happen on their way back to Earth! Just a fact!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While the team hangs out in their campfire for the night, Lance opens up with Keith about being worried for what awaits them back at home, the uneasiness he feels just thinking about time and space and what it means for them.
> 
> Keith, on the other hand, is not worried. He knows for a fact everything turns out okay.

“It just worries me, ya know?”

Keith hums quietly as he nods. He watches in silence as Lance crosses his arms over his chest and sighs, leaning back on the rock behind them.

“I mean, who knows how long we’ve been out here; you said it yourself, man, with the abyss adventure? Those were two whole years for you! It’s just…”

 _‘Wild,’_ Keith’s mind supplies for him but he doesn’t voice it. It’s more than just ‘wild’ but there’s no human word to describe his feelings on the entire ordeal. Keith settles down with ‘wild’.

Lance sighs again, throwing his right leg over his knee and letting it bounce in the air as he continues to ramble. Keith stays silent, taking advantage of the brunet’s distraction to slide closer to his side subtly.

He kind of wants to run his fingers through Lance’s hair, if anything. It’s something he finds comforting, but not by experience. At least not from present or past experience.

Keith can vaguely picture it but the small bits he recalls from the multiplies visions he went through the Quantum Abysm are brown fingers running through his own black hair, sometimes scratching his scalp playfully but dripping with fondness on the edges.

The images he was shown were always hard for Keith to hold on, especially when there had been over fifteen visions a day for him and Krolia. It took them a while to get used to them.

But emotions were always harder to shake off. They stuck with Keith even after he came back to the team. He doesn’t mind, it gives him a sense of hope for the future he saw and hasn’t come. yet.

He wonders, in the back of his mind, if Lance would feel as protected and loved as he had felt on the vision if Keith was the one running his fingers through his brown locks.

“I just hope my family is okay,” Lance whispers quietly, sighing softly as he rubs stubbornly his right eye. Keith’s face softens, a small smile growing on his lips at Lance’s wishes.

God, he’s so gone for this boy.

“Lance,” he calls gently, bumping his shoulder against Lance’s to catch his attention. It takes him a few more tries before the brunet huffs in defeat and lifts his gaze only to meet Keith’s kind eyes. “Lance, they _are_.”

Keith knows this because he saw them. He saw them chatting and laughing among themselves as he sat in their dining room. He saw them sitting on the front rows of his future-self as he waited patiently on the altar with the ocean behind him.

He saw them crowding him and his partner, cooing over the small baby he had been holding in his arms with all the care and love in the world.

Lance's smile brings him back from his head. “How can you be so sure, mullet?” he asks playfully, nudging him with his elbow and Keith’s chest feels lighter at the sight.

Keith smiles back, happy and confident for the future to come.

“Call it a gut feeling.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where Shiro and Lance have a moment to come to terms with the recent events and Lance can't help but feel guilty for not being able to help someone he considers family before it was almost too late. Shiro's there to comfort him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The goddamned talk I never seem to get from the two characters I want to fucking BOND AND BE FRIENDS. GOD. They deserve better.

It’s so dorky but Shiro still knocks.

Lance looks up instantly, hand still on Red’s dashboard as he continues to caresses it unconsciously. Shiro smiles at him as greet and question from the entrance of the cockpit.

Lance smiles back softly. “Hey, man, how was the nap?”

“Good, I think I found my true love in them,” Shiro jokes, taking the hint and stepping forward. “Although, they do make me feel like an old man.”

Lance snickers quietly. “I mean, you do fit the part,  _ sir _ .”

“Oh, hush, you.” Shiro laughs, standing next to Lance on the side of Red’s dashboard.

Lance grins. “So, what brings you to my humble lion?”

“I needed some quiet; Keith’s being all over me the last few days. I swear he would suggest chewing my food if it wasn’t goo already.” Shiro sighs, shaking his head in half exasperation and fondness.

Lance’s gaze softens. “Aw, he’s just worried, man.”

“I know, I know, and I love him for it, I do.” Shiro smiles, shrugging his shoulders. “But I needed a break, and so did he. I basically pushed him toward Pidge and Hunk so they could distract him enough for me to sneak away.”

“Aw, man, you doomed him.” Lance jokes and Shiro barks a laugh.

“If I’m being honest, my first thought was to shove him to you,” Shiro teases, grin growing as Lance’s cheeks turn red, “but I actually wanted to talk to you.”

It takes Lance a tick to reply, feeling unsure on which topic to focus on. He goes with the later, entirely sure his heart wouldn’t handle the implication of Shiro’s first statement.

“Sure, man, what’s on your mind?”

“Well, it’s more of: what’s on yours?” Shiro says kindly. “Everything okay?”

Lance blinks in surprise, mouth opening and closing a few time over before he shifts and smiles, small and distant but trying his best.

“Of course I am.”

Shiro frowns, pushing himself off the surface behind him before he walks over to Lance and kneels to him next on the pilot seat.

“Talk to me, buddy.”

Shiro’s patient. He waits because he cares. He waits because his teammate, friend, and family needs him.

Lance stares right back at him, eyes wide in shock and uncertainty. It’s a look that makes Shiro’s chest to ache and hurt because Lance shouldn’t look so vulnerable and scared while being surrounded by people who love him.

A few ticks pass by and then Lance’s breathing shudders and everything crumbles. Shiro’s there to catch him, securing his only arm around the younger teen’s shoulder and bringing him closer to him.

Lance slides off the seat at some point, both of them ending on the floor of Red’s cockpit but Shiro doesn't care. He doesn’t care about anything at the moment but the crying teen in his arms.

Shiro shushes and comforts over Lance’s sobs, his flesh hand making small circles on the teen’s back. He feels the way Lance gasps for air at some point, his sobs making it hard to breathe in the right air into his lungs and Shiro guides him carefully through it, praising him at every breath he takes.

His heart breaks, though, at every apology that leaves Lance’s lips. It breaks him because Lance is putting others instead of him again, dismissing his own pain to address other’s and it’s not fair. It’s not fair because Lance’s just as loved and Shiro doesn’t think Lance himself believes so.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Shiro whispers against brown locks, shaking his head when Lance tries to argue. “It wasn’t your fault, buddy. I love you, it’s okay.”

He repeats the words over and over again, like one of those chants he remembers Lance being so fond of. Shiro hopes that maybe, that way, the words will click inside the brunet’s brain and he would start believing them.

Until then, Shiro repeats them as many times it takes.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> During the Quantum Abyss, Keith and Krolia catch up on the years they missed on each other. Some things they share by will, and other things, they find out late at night.

It hurts her more than any flesh wound ever did.

Krolia chokes as the vision of the past fills her surroundings. She can only stare at the lone small figure - so small, so wrong - that cries in front of a tombstone only a few feet from where she stands.

Krolia suppresses the urge to scream, the lump on her throat actually being a blessing at the moment since she can’t trust herself. She sees the way Keith sniffles pitifully, small quiet sobs being the only sound echoing around them both and Krolia aches.

She aches to reach out and gather her son in her arms, shielding him from all the harm and pain that’s being thrown at him mercilessly. How she aches to comfort him with soft words and gentle promises of protection and love.

She aches so bad and the pain of knowing she can’t it’s greater than anything she has ever experience.

Every small sob that shakes Keith’s small body digs deeper into her chest but she endures it because her son had been alone through it all. She owned it to him. And to her mate.

God, her _mate_ . Her wonderful mate who kept half of her entire being and he’s _gone_ . He’s been gone for so long and she hadn’t _known_.

She bites down her lower lip as soon as she feels it wobble but she allows the silent tears on the edge of her eyes to fall.

She owes it to herself to mourn. She owes it to her mate.

When the tombstones leave along with Keith’s small silhouette, Krolia’s left with a sudden void in her chest. She breathes in, urging her lungs to take in the air she tries to provide as she slowly comes back to her senses.

Krolia looks around her with a slight confusion but her heart settles down as soon as her eyes land on Keith’s sleeping form a few feet from her.

She sees him shift on his sleep, turning on the ground until he’s facing her and it’s then when she can see the clear discomfort and pain in her son’s young features.

It reminds her that these vision are played for the both of them and something inside Krolia burns.

She slides quietly on the ground until she’s next to Keith’s free side, shushing the wolf pup on Keith’s right side softly when he shifts to meet her eyes. Cosmo stares at her for a few ticks before he settles back down, muzzle pushing against Keith’s stomach as if to comfort.

Krolia smiles fondly before she reaches and strokes her son’s bangs out of his face. She repeats the action a few more times until Keith’s faint whimpers quiet down and his chest evens out.

She hadn't been able to comfort when it was most needed but she dares to hope she can do more now that she’s here.

Keith mumbles something under his breath then and Krolia’s heart warms up when her son leans against her touch, seeking for more.

She’s not leaving.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cosmo is a sweetheart, we all know that, but what IF he had been a tad overprotective of his charge once he is surranded by new people. He's specially suspicious of the one in blue.

It takes a while but not by much.

Krolia understands Cosmo’s uncertainty; being surrounded by new people and an entirely new dynamic than the one they had going on for two years in the Quantum Abyss. She knows the cosmic creature feels on edge at the sudden events, his instincts to protect growing ten folds in just a few days they have been back.

She also knows Keith’s exasperated but understanding nonetheless on the issue. Cosmo’s overprotective of his charge, has been so ever since he had been a pup under Keith’s care. They share a bond, unique and precious to them both.

Keith starts by easing Cosmo into his activities, letting him tag along as Keith moves around their camp and chats with his friends. It seems to work for the most part because Keith makes sure to include him on conversations and always calms him down by stroking his fur when his teammates try to even talk him.

Krolia watches the entire process, always being close enough. It’s a small camp, it’s hard to miss things.

Like the jealousy she catches one night.

She’s sitting a few feet from Keith, going through some all data on one of the tablets the smallest paladin had to spare. She looks up the moment she hears Cosmo growl low in warning, jumping on his feet next to Keith as footsteps grow louder.

“Oh, no, bad idea.” She hears the Red Paladin say from his spot, just a few feet away from the pair, shifting on his own feet as he holds two bowls of food goo. Krolia suppresses the snicker that threatens to escape as she sees the nervous look on the teen’s face, a small heat visible on his cheeks despite being nightfall.

“No, Lance. It’s okay, I swear,” Keith says hurriedly when he sees Lance attempt to leave and offers a smile to his teammate when the brunet stops on his tracks and looks back at him.

“You sure?” The younger teen asks and Keith chuckles warmly.

“I swear, man.”

The former blue paladin hesitates a tick before he nods to himself and takes a small step forward. Cosmo immediately tenses, looking between Lance and Keith, slightly unsure of himself when his owner stares down at him firmly.

“Hey,” Keith calls softly near Cosmo’s ear as he kneels down and strokes his fur gently. “It’s just Lance, you can trust him. I do.”

The cosmic wolf doesn’t blink, eyes looking for something in Keith’s face before he slowly loses his tension and pushes his muzzle against his owner’s cheek, earning a small chuckle from the teen.

“I swear I come in peace,” Lance offers hastily, clearly not aware of the conversation between the pair. Keith rolls his eyes but snickers fondly, patting the space next to him on the ground.

“Just sit down, Lance.”

The Red Paladin does, eyes never leaving Cosmo’s own as he moves slowly, trying to look as unthreatening as possible. The wolf just stares back at him, watching him carefully even when the brunet carefully passes one bowl of food goo to Keith.

Krolia stares surprised when the teen places the last bowl of goo in front of Cosmo.

“I thought you two might be hungry,” Lance says quietly, offering a small smile to the pair when both of them look at him in surprise. “And you weren’t there to taste Hunk’s new goo flavor so, I asked him if he could make it again with the provisions we have.”

Krolia shakes her head in amusement at the way her son’s face heats up under a tick. She knows he got that from his father.

“Thank you, Lance.”

The brunet beams back at her son, looking proud of himself. He freezes though, when Cosmo walks towards him, stepping over his owner to get to the teen and sniffs him curiously.

Keith grumbles in annoyance, a quiet warning on the tip of his lips before he blinks surprised. Three pairs of eyes stare in astonishment as Cosmo licks Lance’s cheek, bumping his forehead next against the brunet’s temple to express his silent approval.

Lance brags about it for two movements straight.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The team finds out about Lance's close encounter with Death and for once, Lance doesn't have to hold it together. His team got his back.

_“Lance.”_

The entire group freeze at the sharp scolding. They all share an awkward look between them before their eyes fall on the pair sitting a few feet away from the campfire.

Lance shifts uneasy at the attention but ignores the stares. Instead, he looks at Allura and sighs as he pulls his arm out of Allura’s reach, eyebrows slightly furrowed together as if in exasperation.

It’s an odd look on Lance.

“Princess, it’s fine,” Lance says slowly and quietly, trying to disarm the entire conversation before it could even begin. _“It’s fine.”_

“It’s not,” Allura stress out, eyebrows furrowed in frustration. “Just, please, sit still.”

“Allura, _please_ , drop it,” Lance hisses, a faint edge of desperation lingering on the words that makes everyone to frown in confusion.

“Hey, guys?” Keith speaks up then, having enough of feeling like he’s missing something big. “What’s going on?”

Lance and Allura share a quick look where the brunet shakes his head stubbornly and throws his hands in the air when Allura scowls at him and turns to face Keith completely.

“What’s going _on_ , Keith, is that Lance’s being stubborn and won’t let me help him,” Allura’s scowls hardens as she throws a glare at the brunet on her side. “I expected better from you, Lance.”

Lance rolls his eyes at the accusation. “Yes, yes, big disappointment, _big news_. Can we please let it go? I just want to eat -”

“Woah, woah,” Hunk says shaking his arms in front of him and making a big cross with them, “woah, hold up! Allura, what do you mean help him? How? _Why_?”

Allura hesitates a moment and it’s enough for the entire team to stand up from their seat, their shoulders already tensing under the heavy silence.

“Allura, _don’t_ ,” Lance pleads next to her. Allura bites down her lower lip, closing her eyes as if in pain before she sighs and throws an apologetic look at Lance.

“I’m sorry, Lance,” she mumbles before she lifts her gaze and meets the team’s eyes. “It’s nothing life-threatening but he _needs_ to rest and allow me to give him some of my quintessence while his own restores itself with time.”

“Woah, woah!” Pidge shouts then, looking bewildered by the words. “Woah, hold up! That only gives me more questions. Why would it be life-threatening or better yet: _what would?_ Why does he needs _quintessence_?”

“Can we stop saying ‘woah woah woah’?” Lance asks exasperated, and if the annoyance in his voice is sign enough for the team to know something is wrong, the way the brunet avoid their gaze certainly clues them in.

“Lance,” Keith mumbles quietly, eyebrows furrowing in concern. Lance looks back at him, opening his mouth to explain himself before he sighs and groan, dropping his head on his hands in shame.

“Guys, honestly, it’s not big deal --”

 _“Do not,”_ Allura snaps, her glare shaking in the slightest as she turns back to look at the brunet. “Do not dare to belittle your death, Paladin. Not in my presence.”

“What’re you talking about?” Hunk is the one to break the silence, voice small and nervous as he looks between the princess and his best friend. He swallows dryly when neither of them answers him. _“What do you mean, Allura?”_

Allura’s body shudders, her eyes looking up in a weak attempt to keep her posture. She starts to explain in a quiet voice, re-telling the experience she had feared since the start of their journey, of losing someone close to her.

The silence that follows once she’s done is suffocating.

“I didn’t, I didn’t know if it would work,” Allura admits brokenly, hand pressed against her chest as if it physically hurt. “I just couldn’t let it happen, not to him.”

“‘Llura,” Lance mumbles softly behind her.

“Is that true?” Keith cuts him off. Lance’s gazes snaps back at him and he freezes at the heartbroken look on the teen’s face. “Lance, answer me.”

Lance nods slowly, biting down his lower lip when the team’s broken expressions fall even more. “I don’t remember much besides waking up with Allura next to me, but ...”

The brunet sighs, letting his words to trail off as he rubs the side of his temple.

“ _Lance_ ,” Pidge croaks out wetly at his silence, a small sniffle leaving her small frame. Lance’s attention quickly falls on her, looking horrified.

“Aw, Pidge, no, it’s okay, _I’m_ okay,” he comforts weakly, standing wobbly from the ground to reach for the younger teen’s hand.

Pidge steps forward into his arms without much complaint, sobbing on his chest as the brunet hugs her tighter.

“You guys,” Lance chokes out when the rest of his team follows suit, wrapping their arms around both of his teammates and holding tight. “G-Guys --”

“Sh,” Keith hushes quietly, eyes closed tightly as he press his face on the brunet’s temple. “Sh, it’s fine, just -- let go, it’s okay.”

After that, Lance breaks but it’s okay. His team hold him tight.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! 
> 
> Here’s my tumblr, just in case: [bleusarcelle](http://bleusarcelle.tumblr.com)  
> AND my writing tumblr for small drabbles I don't post here: [bleusarcellewrites](http://bleusarcellewrites.tumblr.com)


End file.
